


Things You Said at 1 AM

by shittybundaskenyer



Series: Two Fereldans Let Loose in Val Royeaux [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Blight, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt, alistair and delia are on their honeymoon, things you said at 1am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 12:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18010808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shittybundaskenyer/pseuds/shittybundaskenyer
Summary: Delia is not used to happiness.





	Things You Said at 1 AM

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a prompt fill from [this list](https://shittybundaskenyer.tumblr.com/post/183209427692/send-me-a-ship-and-one-of-these-and-ill-write-a): things you said at 1am. Thank you [@gingerbreton](http://gingerbreton.tumblr.com/) for the prompt!
> 
> [Send me](https://shittybundaskenyer.tumblr.com/ask/) a prompt on tumblr!

Delia is sitting outside. 

He notices her small frame through the opened balcony door when the wind gets caught in the thin, transparent curtains — she watches the sky, the storm forming in the distance, still far away from the city, but close enough to see how the clouds twist and turn. Lightning flashes and in the sudden light he can see her tapping her bare foot on the cool floor, her navy nightgown barely covering her thighs. A glass of wine sits on the table next to her and she’s eating the last bits of the leftover cake they had for dessert at lunch. 

“You’re not sleeping,” Alistair mumbles, half of his face still buried in the pillow. She doesn’t answer and he sighs after a moment, then rolls out of the  _ hideous _ Orlesian bed they were sharing. Actually, everything is hideous in Orlais for his Fereldan tastes anyways, but Delia wanted to travel to Val Royeaux since she was a child and now he feels really proud when he thinks about her face when he told her where they’ll spend their honeymoon. Or that sunny afternoon when they finally entered the city and everything blended into a colorful mess with funny accents, gold, and the smell of delicious food. Or the night after, making love to his  _ wife _ .

With a small, lopsided grin on his lips, he grabs his breeches from the floor and quickly pulls them on, scratching his chest where a small, purple love bite started forming. 

Alistair walks outside, he, too, barefooted and without a shirt, but Delia doesn’t move. She just sits there, the glass of wine now perfectly balanced between three fingers, and she stares into the distance where the slow waves of the Waking Sea are lapping on the shore under the storm clouds. Her hair is swirling around her face and shoulders, and in this light it seems black, like the water in the city’s docks. 

He places a palm on her shoulder, gentle and careful, and pulls a chair closer to the small table so he can sit beside her. She lets out a breath slowly, closing her eyes and when she looks up again, those sky blue eyes stare right into his gaze. 

“Did I wake you up?” she asks quietly and slides a hand over his while Alistair’s is rubbing slow circles on her shoulder. 

“Yes, you were eating that cake alone _ that _ loud,” he smiles and reaches towards her face to wipe down a small patch of cherry-flavored cream from the corner of her mouth. 

“You are too cute when you’re sleeping, it’d be  _ cruel _ to wake you up so you can eat half of  _ my _ cake,” she takes a sip from the wine and watches him licking off the cream from his finger. 

She’s not smiling and he knows that something is not okay. He reaches forward and takes out the almost empty glass from her hand, then sets it on the table and leans closer to her, his hands seeking hers while he presses a soft kiss onto her forehead. She sighs again, her shaky breath tickling his neck. “What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice only a whisper. 

She threads her fingers through his, “I’ve been thinking.”

“What’s this about, love?” his words are caressing the side of her face as his lips slide down to her jaw, leaving butterfly-kisses in their wake. “Do you want to go home?” 

“ _No!_ ” she quickly shakes her head and he has to lean back a bit. “No. It’s nothing.”

“Delia,  _ please _ , stop keeping everything to yourself. Just… talk to me.” 

She looks up at him, slightly biting on her lower lip like she usually does when she doesn’t want to tell something. He wants to kiss away her worry and sadness, wants to hold her in his arms and give her everything he can to make her happy. But he just leans back on the chair, his fingers fidgeting with her hand in his lap. He listens. Always.

“I —I’m  so happy to be here, with you. Everything is so beautiful, and you’re  _ my husband _ , and we just spend all our time together and eat cake, and I can see the sea from here, just like at home, and I just keep thinking about that I’ve never felt this happy in my whole life, and something bad will happen and…” she takes in a breath, waits for Alistair to interrupt her, but he just strokes the palm he’s holding with his thumb. “I don’t want to go back. I want to be with you, somewhere nice, free from the taint and everything else. I want to have a family of my own, children… but it’s impossible. This whole thing is just a joke. A mask like the Orlesians are wearing, something to cover up the corruption and sadness under our skin.” 

Alistair doesn’t speak, and his gaze wanders away, searching for something in the distance where another lightning flashes. The wind is still warm, even in the middle of the night — something he can never get used to. 

Somewhere the Chantry’s bells ring, only once. It’s one o’clock already. 

“You feel sad because you were too happy for a long time?” he wraps his arm around her shoulder and lays her head onto his chest. She closes her eyes, and a single tear clings to her dark lashes until he wipes it away and kisses the top of her head. “Don’t cry, dear.”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t take all the happiness in. It feels so good, but it’s terrifying at the same time,” she smiles a little and his heart flutters and skips a beat like he’s still that boy who just saw that wild thing marching towards him with a sword almost bigger than her while he was delivering a message to a very annoying mage. “But I’m grateful. For all of this. For  _ you _ .”

“Actually, _I_ should be grateful,” he tilts her head up with a finger under her chin while he tucks a dark strand of hair behind her ear with his other hand, and then he’s kissing her, slow and sweet, just like the cherry-cake she was eating earlier. “You are the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me, Delia,” he whispers onto her lips because he doesn’t want to let go just yet. “You did impossible things! You brought back Arl Eamon with the Ashes, you saved a whole Circle,  _ Maker’s balls _ , you even killed an Archdemon and lived to tell the tale. You are incredible, you are impossible and I just can’t wrap my head around it that you chose  _ me _ . You just came into my life like a raging wildfire, bloodthirsty for vengeance, and now you’re sitting beside me,  _ my wife, _ and I’m the luckiest person in all of Thedas,” he was always good with words, but not  _ this _ good, making her cry from happiness. 

But she does cry, and he sheds a tear or two, too. 

“Why are you like this?” she playfully hits his arm and snakes her arms around his neck to pull herself into his lap.

“Because, my dear  _ wife _ , you were overthinking again,” he kisses her once more on the tip of her nose and her freckled cheeks. “And as your husband, now it’s my job to distract you from your problems.”

“How many times you’ll call me your wife?” she smirks, now genuinely happy and kisses him. He tastes the wine on her tongue and the cherry-cream on her lips. 

“As many times as I can.”

They sit there for a long time, maybe until the rain starts pouring down on them or when the Chantry bells start ringing again, but it doesn’t matter. They’re wrapped in each other’s arms, lost in the embrace on the hideous Orlesian bed, and while the storm rages and the world is still cruel outside these walls, they hold on. 

Onto one another. Onto happiness. Onto those quiet words mumbled to each other at one in the morning. 


End file.
